News Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser to permanently close this fall

[Nubs70]

CNN too

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/23/travel/star-wars-hotel-disney-jenny-nicholson-cec/index.html

NPR picked it up Saturday.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Forbes, The Independent and other outlets have published articles related to the video too

Also somewhat relevant is Jenny's skepticism about the "highest guest satisfaction" claim

 

[Nubs70]

My company uses Glint as an independent third party for customer satisfaction surveys.

 

[Incomudro]

I just watched segments of Jenny's video last night.
Excellent work.
Of the myriad of spot on things she said, I liked "Things have value."
This was one of my arguments from the start.
Even people with money to burn, know the value of money.
They know what they should get for a given level of expenditure.
They know what $6,000 in accommodations, food, service and drinks should bring them.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

The price point was a bit higher BUT if the experience was done right, it may have truly been a once in a lifetime experience worth justifying.

Or conversely, if the price point was a lot lower, I think this also would have done just fine. Per her video the single biggest problem was the fact that she was paying $2 per person per minute for a mediocre experience. Her biggest single fail was the tech fail, and I feel like if they could have fixed that (which they probably would have over time), and had priced this reasonably, it would have been a success. I still don’t understand how they couldn’t price this lower. Also per her video, do you really think that they were paying those actors huge salaries?

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Forbes, The Independent and other outlets have published articles related to the video too

Also somewhat relevant is Jenny's skepticism about the "highest guest satisfaction" claim

Wow. She is really good at what she does.

 

[TheIceBaron]

That always got me about their surveys, I went to Disney a bunch when StarCruiser was open but on the post-visit surveys I got, they asked if I had booked a StarCruiser stay as well. And after saying no, I didn’t receive any other StarCruiser questions.

Not even like a why not? Which boggles my mind why wouldn’t you ask someone who visited Disney multiple times in a year why they didn’t go on the StarCruiser or if they even heard of it. Doesn’t it make more sense to survey people who decided to pass on even trying your product? Rather than just get confirmation bias from people who did go? I’m not saying you can game a survey to tell your manager it’s not your fault but……

After watching Jenny’s video however, I just hope Disney doesn’t gaslight themselves into thinking the problem is simply “people didn’t understand it.”

 

[erasure fan1]

After watching Jenny’s video however, I just hope Disney doesn’t gaslight themselves into thinking the problem is simply “people didn’t understand it.”

Well, when you offer people the most authentic and ultimate star wars experience ever made. It has to be the consumer was the issue. Any star wars fan worth their salt would have paid double and been thankful to attend.

 

[KrzyKtty]

Well, when you offer people the most authentic and ultimate star wars experience ever made. It has to be the consumer was the issue. Any star wars fan worth their salt would have paid double and been thankful to attend.

My brother absolutely despises everything disney has done with star wars. He's a very very particular soul though.

 

[MrPromey]

My brother absolutely despises everything disney has done with star wars. He's a very very particular soul though.

You mean he's like most Star Wars fans?

 

[KrzyKtty]

You mean he's like most Star Wars fans?

No, I wouldn't even say he's that much of a die hard fan. He is an Obi Wan fanboy though. He is just extraordinarily picky in the execution of all things . See his input on every batman movie ever. Let's not even get into all of the movies with knights in armor.

In all fairness that attention to detail is probably what makes him such a good DM.

 

[KrzyKtty]

I do think that he would have loved the experience though. Though he would have put such an insane level of detail into his character and back story honestly I don't think the cast members would have known what to do with him .

 

[larryz]

• Jenny's video is fairly accurate, but somewhat too dramatic.

She's as bitter as a case of Angostura. Justifiably.

• The main reasons for closure were super simple: 1. attraction was for a niche audience (at its core was a role play/escape room attraction), and 2. clear future labor cost were going to skyrocket vs guest volume (e.g. whales didn't show up in droves). Recall the main metric at parks is... throughput (Chapek's solution was price gating and merch, lol).

Looks to me like they pulled the plug because it just didn't work for too many people.

 

[sedati]

Starcruiser was to regular theme park goers what Jenny's Patreon is to her regular YouTube watchers.

 

[Nubs70]

Rolling Stone running the story now

 

[LittleBuford]

Forbes, The Independent and other outlets have published articles related to the video too

Also somewhat relevant is Jenny's skepticism about the "highest guest satisfaction" claim

I believe Touring Plans collected similar data, so regardless of what the video says, many who experienced the Starcruiser seem genuinely to have really enjoyed it.

But it isn't just from those recent surveys after it was closed

This is from Touring Plans, so third party, not Disney and not paid. They had, in total, 4,500 responses and Starcruiser had the highest rating overall (the line is the 95% confidence interval) - so clearly those that participated thought the experience was great

View attachment 750985


and there is no big mystery, nothing that needs to be explained to you - quite a few people were attracted to what was offered, participated/spent the money, and enjoyed it ... but not enough to keep it going as it was. That's it, doesn't need to appeal to you or to be justified to you. And it is ok if you don't "get it" and ok that other people loved it


Only really relevant thing is where they go from here - what did they learn from it, and how might there be a unique opportunity in the future that other (hopefully more) people would be interested in, be it Star Wars related or something else

 

[donaldtoo]

I believe Touring Plans collected similar data, so regardless of what the video says, many who experienced the Starcruiser seem genuinely to have really enjoyed it.

But, Is there any data on those who would have repeated it, as opposed to a one and done…?! That and the price point seem to have been the last nail in the coffin.

 

[LittleBuford]

But, Is there any data on those who would have repeated it, as opposed to a one and done…?! That and the price point seem to have been the last nail in the coffin.

You’ll have to ask @lentesta.

Those posters who actually experienced it and contributed to this thread had only good things to say. That seems to have been forgotten among all the post-video glee.

I would have loved to treat my partner—a big Star Wars fan—to a stay, but the price point was just too prohibitive for me to really consider it.

 

[UNCgolf]

You’ll have to ask @lentesta.

Those posters who actually experienced it and contributed to this thread had only good things to say. That seems to have been forgotten among all the post-video glee.

I would have loved to treat my partner—a big Star Wars fan—to a stay, but the price point was just too prohibitive for me to really consider it.

I think the price point was absolutely the biggest problem. I don't know how Disney thought that kind of experience at that cost would ever have a large enough audience to be sustainable.

While it didn't look like an experience I'd personally enjoy -- despite being a massive Star Wars fan at one point in my life, although not so much now -- I think there are a lot of people who would have gone at a lower price point. The asking price was absurd.

It's possible that price point was the only way Disney could turn a reasonable profit (especially since they didn't even try to offer discounts before shutting it down), but in that case, there was a significant design failure somewhere along the line.

 

[LittleBuford]

I think the price point was absolutely the biggest problem. I don't know how Disney thought that kind of experience at that cost would ever have a large enough audience to be sustainable.

While it didn't look like an experience I'd personally enjoy -- despite being a massive Star Wars fan at one point in my life, although not so much now -- I think there are a lot of people who would have gone at a lower price point. The asking price was absurd.

It's possible that price point was the only way Disney could turn a reasonable profit (especially since they didn't even try to offer discounts before shutting it down), but in that case, there was a significant design failure somewhere along the line.

I agree with all of this!